An elderly man was killed on Tuesday as clashes broke out throughout West Bank in commemoration of the 70th anniversary of Nakba.

Medical sources affirmed that member of Sa’ir municipal council Idris Shaker Jabarin, 58, died of teargas inhalation fired by Israeli forces in Sa’ir town in al-Khalil.

248 other Palestinians were injured during West Bank clashes including a critical live ammunition injury, the sources added

Violent clashes erupted on Tuesday afternoon between the Israeli forces and Palestinian youths across West Bank over the transfer of the US embassy to Jerusalem on the 70th anniversary of the Palestinian Nakba Monday.

Islamic factions in Ain al-Hilweh refugee camp on Monday night organized a mass demonstration in commemoration of Nakba's 70th anniversary and in support of the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip.

The demonstration witnessed the participation of a large number of the camp's residents as well as representatives of Hamas, the Islamic Jihad and Osbat al-Ansar movements.

The demonstrators chanted slogans demanding the right of return for refugees and condemning the US embassy transfer to Jerusalem.

The Hamas official in Ain al-Hilweh Mohammed Abu Laila said in a speech during the demonstration that nothing can break the Palestinian people's will, stressing that the deal of the century will not succeed and that Jerusalem will remain the eternal capital of Palestine.

Thousand of Palestinians marched, Monday, from Martyr Yasser Arafat Square in the central West Bank city of Ramallah, and headed towards Qalandia terminal, north of Jerusalem.

The protesters marched while carrying Palestinian flags, and signs affirming their legitimate, internationally guaranteed rights of Freedom, independence and the Right of Return to all refugees.

The also chanted against the illegal U.S. policies supporting and financing this illegal occupation, and the transfer of the U.S. Embassy to the occupied city, in direct violation of International Law.

Ramallah Governor Laila Ghannam, said the Palestinians will continue their struggle for liberation and independence, until the establishment of their state with Jerusalem as its capital.

The coordinator of the National Factions in Ramallah, Essam Abu Bakr, said “the United States strengthens, supports and implements the policies of this illegal occupation of occupied Jerusalem, but the Palestinians will remain steadfast in will never abandon their legitimate rights.”

The Palestinians are marking the 70th anniversary of Nakba Day when Israel was created in the historic land of Palestine in 1948.

It is worth mentioning that the soldiers have killed, Monday, 58 Palestinians, including six children and four officers of the Palestinian Ministry of Interior and National Security, in the Gaza Strip, and injured 2771.

During the Nakba of 1948, prior to the establishment of Israel is the historic land of Palestine, 1.4 million Palestinians lived in 1,300 towns and villages all over historical Palestine. More than 800,000 of the population were driven out of their homeland to the West Bank and Gaza Strip, neighboring Arab countries, and other countries of the world.

Thousands of Palestinians were displaced from their homes but stayed within the Israeli-controlled 1948 territory. According to documentary evidence, the Israelis controlled 774 towns and villages and destroyed 531 Palestinian towns and villages during the Nakba. The atrocities of Zionist forces also included more than 70 massacres in which at least 15 thousand Palestinians were killed.

Israeli soldiers injured, on Monday at night, many Palestinians in the al-Fawwar refugee camp, south of Hebron, in the southern part of the occupied West Bank.

Media sources in Hebron said the soldiers attacked dozens of Palestinians, who marched against the ongoing illegal occupation, and marking the Nakba Day.

The soldiers fired dozens of gas bombs, and rubber-coated steel bullets, causing scores of Palestinians to suffer the effects of teargas inhalation.

In addition, the army invaded and ransacked many homes in the southern part of Hebron city, and interrogated many Palestinians for hours, after the soldiers claimed shots were fired at their vehicles in the area.

The invasions also targeted the Ibrahimiyya area, and Jaber neighborhood, allegedly looking for the Palestinians who fired at them.

The Palestinians are marking the 70th anniversary of Nakba Day when Israel was created in the historic land of Palestine in 1948.

It is worth mentioning that the soldiers have killed, Monday, 58 Palestinians, including six children and four officers of the Palestinian Ministry of Interior and National Security, in the Gaza Strip, and injured 2771.

During the Nakba of 1948, prior to the establishment of Israel is the historic land of Palestine, 1.4 million Palestinians lived in 1,300 towns and villages all over historical Palestine. More than 800,000 of the population were driven out of their homeland to the West Bank and Gaza Strip, neighboring Arab countries, and other countries of the world.

Thousands of Palestinians were displaced from their homes but stayed within the Israeli-controlled 1948 territory. According to documentary evidence, the Israelis controlled 774 towns and villages and destroyed 531 Palestinian towns and villages during the Nakba. The atrocities of Zionist forces also included more than 70 massacres in which at least 15 thousand Palestinians were killed.

Al-Quds Foundation in Malaysia has launched an informative webpage in Malay and English about the 1948 Palestinian Nakba (catastrophe).

Director of the foundation Sharif Abu Shammala stated that “the launch of the page comes on the 70th anniversary of the Nakba and the establishment of a Zionist entity called Israel on the land of Palestine, which resulted in the killing, displacement and genocide of the Palestinian people, as well as the occupation of 78 percent of the Palestinian territories.”

According to Abu Shammala, the pages talks briefly about the beginnings of the Zionist movement and the escalation of its danger under British protection as well as the systematic plan that was pursued to ethnically cleanse the native population from their land and the subsequent suffering that has afflicted the Palestinian people at home and abroad since then.

The Israeli occupation army has decided to reinforce battalions in the West Bank and along Gaza's eastern border fence in the lead up to next week's expected protests to mark the 70th anniversary of the Palestinian Nakba, according to Haaretz.

Quoting a senior official in the army, Haaretz said that the Palestinians next Monday will be marching in protest at the US embassy transfer to Jerusalem and in commemoration of the Nakba anniversary.

Rage has been escalating in the Palestinian territories since the US president Donald Trump recognized Jerusalem as Israel's capital on 6th December 2017 and announced his intention to move his country's embassy in Israel to the holy city.

The Israeli official said that next week's protests are expected to be "far more violent" than the past weeks.

The Palestinians in the Gaza Strip have been marching since 30th March along the eastern border to demand their right of return to their lands from which they were expelled in 1948.

Haaretz reported that the Israeli army has decided to deploy more battalions in anticipation of violent clashes with far more flashpoints in Gaza and the West Bank.

The Israeli army on Friday killed one Palestinian and injured about 731 others, according to Gaza's Ministry of Health.

Haaretz said that the Israeli army will attempt to stop protesters further away from the fence than established in recent weeks hoping to prevent advancement past the tent area located 300 meters of the fence.

The Palestinian people living in the Gaza Strip are the most affected by the US and Israeli policies. Inhabited by over two million Palestinians, the coastal enclave, with a decade-long blockade, is suffering from harsh living conditions that keep worsening each new day.

The Palestinian Human Rights Organizations Council has issued a statement entitled: “The ongoing Nakba must end: the time has come for the international community to act.” (WAFA)

For the Palestinian people, 70 years of Nakba means seven decades of subjugation by Israel, characterized by occupation, apartheid and colonial policies and practices. It also attests to the chronic inaction and failure of the international community to fulfill its obligations and responsibilities under international law, to a lack of accountability and protection, and to the continued support of a shallow and biased peace process incapable of bringing about peace or justice. Nevertheless, after 70 years of Nakba, the Palestinian people remain resolute in demanding their most fundamental rights to return and self-determination.

Today, at least 8.26 million of 12.7 million Palestinians are forcibly displaced worldwide as a result of Israel’s ongoing policies of population transfer, annexation and colonization. Israel has persisted in its denial of reparations, refusing forcibly displaced Palestinians the right to return, restitution, compensation and guarantees of non-repetition as articulated in numerous UN resolutions. The remaining one third of non-displaced Palestinians, spread across Mandatory Palestine, is subject to ongoing policies of forcible displacement by Israel.

In recent years there has been a growing campaign led by Israel and the United States (U.S.) to terminate the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees (UNRWA), the international body mandated to provide humanitarian assistance to Palestinian refugees. This is not the first attempt by Israel to delegitimize UNRWA, nor is it the first time a U.S. administration has withheld, or threatened to withhold, funding to UNRWA as a form of political blackmail.

The voluntary nature of UNRWA’s funding, however, has made the provision of its services dependent of the will of donors and, consequently, has rendered it vulnerable to political pressure and interference. In fact, a historical analysis of Israel’s demands and U.S. conduct from the outset of the Oslo ‘peace process’ reveals an organized and targeted strategy designed to eradicate the fundamental rights of Palestinians in general, and the rights of Palestinian refugees and internally displaced persons in particular.

This strategy is intricately linked to the demise of UNRWA, which serves as a reminder of the international community’s failure to find a viable solution for the world’s largest and longest standing displaced population. This situation has resulted in a severe financial crisis at UNRWA that has significantly affected the Agency’s capacity to provide the most basic services to Palestinian refugees.

On 6 December 2017, U.S. President Trump announced Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, becoming the first state in the world to recognize Israel’s unlawful annexation of the city. International consensus over the past seven decades has rejected claims by Israel to sovereign rights over the city of Jerusalem and condemned Israeli measures that have sought to alter the character of the city as having no legal validity, as reaffirmed by numerous UN resolutions. U.S. President Trump broke with this international consensus by recognizing Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and ordering the relocation of the U.S. Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.

Trump’s declaration not only violates international law, it also deepens Israel’s unlawful annexation of East Jerusalem and illegal colonial and settlement enterprise in and around the city. Moreover, the declaration signifies a change in policy regarding final status issues which directly affect the conflict. The U.S.’s recent policies vis-à-vis Palestinian refugees, UNRWA and Jerusalem show a clear bias in favor of Israel, rendering the U.S. unfit to play a mediating role in peace efforts.

With the chronic lack of just and durable solutions, Palestinians organized marches demanding the right of return in the 1990s. The March of Return has been organized by Palestinians in Israel annually since 1998, each year taking place in a different village forcibly depopulated during the Nakba. The march has become the biggest event of the year for Palestinian citizens of Israel, with growing participation across the political and geographical spectrum, as well as from Palestinian youth. More recently in the Gaza Strip, the Great March of Return has seen thousands of Palestinians protesting for the realization of their fundamental rights and the end of the eleven years closure of the Gaza Strip.

Israel has responded to these protests with excessive, lethal force. Since the march started on 30 March 2018, Israeli forces have killed 40 Palestinians at the protests,including five children, two journalists, and two people with disabilities. Approximately 4,000 people have also been injured, over 2,000 from live ammunition. The willful killing and injuring of unarmed protesters represents a flagrant violation of international human rights law and constitutes a grave breach of the Fourth Geneva Convention.

It also constitutes a crime under the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court. These practices attest to the continued domination and subjugation of the Palestinian people. The marches, and Israel’s excessive use of force and unlawful killings, demonstrate the urgent need to ensure protection for the Palestinian people and to hold Israel to account in accordance with international law.

The lack of durable solutions for Palestinian refugees is also of great significance in the context of the destructive conflicts within Arab countries. These conflicts have resulted in secondary mass displacement of Palestinian refugees. During the war in Syria, of the 560,000 Palestinian refugees present in the country before the commencement of the war, 400,000 have been displaced, 120,000 outside the country and 280,000 internally, most of them requiring immediate humanitarian assistance.

The inalienable rights of the Palestinian people, principally to self-determination and reparations for forcible displacement, cannot be ensured by the humanitarian and political approaches currently deployed by the international community, which are based on an immense imbalance of power and lack any foundation in international law. Any just and durable solution to the Palestinian Question must begin with the adoption of a rights-based approach.

Failure to do so will maintain a status quo in which international protection is absent, and in which Palestinians are condemned to a fate of acute hardship and further displacement. The passivity of the international community not only impacts those who have already been displaced, but also encourages further displacement as Israel continues to enjoy impunity for systematic and grievous violations of international law.

PHROC believes that a just and durable solution is impossible without the adoption of a strategy based upon justice, international law, and relevant international resolutions, including UN General Assembly Resolution 194 and UN Security Council Resolution 237. It reasserts that the international community must:

Take all measures to ensure Israel’s compliance with its obligations under international humanitarian law and international human rights law;

Genuinely strive to secure international protection – including durable solutions – for Palestinian refugees, primarily their rights of return and to self-determination;

Ensure regular funding for the UNRWA is secured in order to ensure the provision of humanitarian assistance and protection to all forcibly displaced Palestinians.